The Not-So-Silent Majority

Forty years ago, a term was coined to describe the voices of ordinary, patriotic, religious Americans who sought to live their lives in peace: the "Silent Majority." In November 1969, almost four decades ago, Vice President Agnew made the first direct assault on the leftist media in his Des Moines speech, which noted that almost everything that Americans knew of politics and current events was filtered through the newsrooms of the three television networks. An excerpt from that famous speech describes the leftist prison of those who govern our news:

"We can deduce that these men read the same newspapers. They draw their political and social views from the same sources. Worse, they talk constantly to one another, thereby providing artificial reinforcement to their shared viewpoints. Do they allow their biases to influence the selection and presentation of the news?"

What has changed in the last forty years? Does the vast corporate and institutional wealth, which alone props up the left, still skew the news, the entertainment, the information presented as fact by those who govern the television networks, Hollywood, academia, nonprofit organizations like ACORN, the American Bar Association, AARP, and labor unions? Of course! Agnew later offered some concrete suggestions on how these elitists could make themselves more aware of how ordinary Americans felt. But, of course, the left has never seen its role as understanding and reflecting America but rather transforming the "mistake" of America into the left's image of a socialist utopia.

Those of us who recall the Reagan years also recall the absolute hatred expressed for Reagan by these media hacks. They gasped when he called the Soviet evil empire an "Evil Empire." They accused him of senility, of ignorance, or everything nasty that they could dream up. How shocked were these same media representatives when President Reagan died five years ago, having been virtually invisible to America for more than a decade, at the huge numbers of Americans who waited patiently for hours to view our dead leader? Without prompting by the leftist media, without more than obligatory notice by the elites, Americans openly mourned this great leader in numbers larger than any president since Lincoln. Even John Kerry, who never had a kind word to say about Reagan as president, felt obliged to pay his phony tribute.

Compare this to the highly publicized, openly political funeral of Teddy Kennedy. The elitist Left would not permit us a moment away from eulogizing this inconsequential younger son of a shady political dynasty. He had been very much in the public eye for many years, giving a major address at the Democratic National Convention last year. But aside for manufactured sentiment, only the politically cynical really showed admiration for Teddy.

Rasmussen in a September 11 poll confirmed how Americans really feel about ideology: all political labels except "being like Reagan" are in growing disfavor; the term "progressive" (a leftist hiding behind a different moniker) is becoming unpopular; and only fifteen percent of Americans consider being called "liberal" a positive. What Rasmussen reports fits perfectly with Gallup, which recently showed conservatives outnumbering liberals and Battleground Polls, which for almost a decade have consistently shown sixty percent of Americans identify themselves as conservatives (not liberals and not moderates.)

The Silent Majority forty years ago was cowed, afraid, and ashamed. It members, the majority of good Americans, felt the sting of being called a racist, sexist, fascist, or whatever other casual insult the Left sought to hurl. The voices of conservative American now include many black Americans, huge numbers of women, lots of Jews, and more Hispanics. These Americans have seen how the left mistreats Clarence Thomas and Sarah Palin: they know that any bigotry that exists in American politics is primarily on the left.

Through nimble media which move much faster and more accurately than the clumsy giants of doctrinaire Leftism, the Silent Majority now increasingly commands the attention of engaged Americans, while the New York Times, CNN, PBS, and Hollywood are slouching toward the carnival freak show of American media.

The Silent Majority transcends political party. Its members see the Republican Party as simply a mechanism to carry out its agenda, just like the elitist left sees the Democratic Party as a vehicle to advance a sort of surreal political madness (just ask honest liberals like Joe Lieberman.) So when President Bush whipped Republicans to unite with Democrats immigration "reform," the Silent Majority yelled "No!" with a voice heard up and down the corridors of Washington power.

This group of engaged citizens, this vast majority of the American people, this corps of hardened veterans in the left's war on God, family, and country, see in the left a foe, not a friend. The Silent Majority understands that the left here, like the terrorists abroad, leave no options but defeat or victory. Led only by common hopes and shared principles, trusting few in Washington but trusting the heart of America implicitly, now talking and writing and organizing by the tens of millions in hundreds of thousands of small groups, what was once call the Silent Majority is now, most definitely, the Not-So-Silent-Majority.

Bruce Walker is the author of two books: Sinisterism : Secular Religion of the Lie and The Swastika against the Cross: The Nazi War on Christianity.

Forty years ago, a term was coined to describe the voices of ordinary, patriotic, religious Americans who sought to live their lives in peace: the "Silent Majority." In November 1969, almost four decades ago, Vice President Agnew made the first direct assault on the leftist media in his Des Moines speech, which noted that almost everything that Americans knew of politics and current events was filtered through the newsrooms of the three television networks. An excerpt from that famous speech describes the leftist prison of those who govern our news:

"We can deduce that these men read the same newspapers. They draw their political and social views from the same sources. Worse, they talk constantly to one another, thereby providing artificial reinforcement to their shared viewpoints. Do they allow their biases to influence the selection and presentation of the news?"

What has changed in the last forty years? Does the vast corporate and institutional wealth, which alone props up the left, still skew the news, the entertainment, the information presented as fact by those who govern the television networks, Hollywood, academia, nonprofit organizations like ACORN, the American Bar Association, AARP, and labor unions? Of course! Agnew later offered some concrete suggestions on how these elitists could make themselves more aware of how ordinary Americans felt. But, of course, the left has never seen its role as understanding and reflecting America but rather transforming the "mistake" of America into the left's image of a socialist utopia.

Those of us who recall the Reagan years also recall the absolute hatred expressed for Reagan by these media hacks. They gasped when he called the Soviet evil empire an "Evil Empire." They accused him of senility, of ignorance, or everything nasty that they could dream up. How shocked were these same media representatives when President Reagan died five years ago, having been virtually invisible to America for more than a decade, at the huge numbers of Americans who waited patiently for hours to view our dead leader? Without prompting by the leftist media, without more than obligatory notice by the elites, Americans openly mourned this great leader in numbers larger than any president since Lincoln. Even John Kerry, who never had a kind word to say about Reagan as president, felt obliged to pay his phony tribute.

Compare this to the highly publicized, openly political funeral of Teddy Kennedy. The elitist Left would not permit us a moment away from eulogizing this inconsequential younger son of a shady political dynasty. He had been very much in the public eye for many years, giving a major address at the Democratic National Convention last year. But aside for manufactured sentiment, only the politically cynical really showed admiration for Teddy.

Rasmussen in a September 11 poll confirmed how Americans really feel about ideology: all political labels except "being like Reagan" are in growing disfavor; the term "progressive" (a leftist hiding behind a different moniker) is becoming unpopular; and only fifteen percent of Americans consider being called "liberal" a positive. What Rasmussen reports fits perfectly with Gallup, which recently showed conservatives outnumbering liberals and Battleground Polls, which for almost a decade have consistently shown sixty percent of Americans identify themselves as conservatives (not liberals and not moderates.)

The Silent Majority forty years ago was cowed, afraid, and ashamed. It members, the majority of good Americans, felt the sting of being called a racist, sexist, fascist, or whatever other casual insult the Left sought to hurl. The voices of conservative American now include many black Americans, huge numbers of women, lots of Jews, and more Hispanics. These Americans have seen how the left mistreats Clarence Thomas and Sarah Palin: they know that any bigotry that exists in American politics is primarily on the left.

Through nimble media which move much faster and more accurately than the clumsy giants of doctrinaire Leftism, the Silent Majority now increasingly commands the attention of engaged Americans, while the New York Times, CNN, PBS, and Hollywood are slouching toward the carnival freak show of American media.

The Silent Majority transcends political party. Its members see the Republican Party as simply a mechanism to carry out its agenda, just like the elitist left sees the Democratic Party as a vehicle to advance a sort of surreal political madness (just ask honest liberals like Joe Lieberman.) So when President Bush whipped Republicans to unite with Democrats immigration "reform," the Silent Majority yelled "No!" with a voice heard up and down the corridors of Washington power.

This group of engaged citizens, this vast majority of the American people, this corps of hardened veterans in the left's war on God, family, and country, see in the left a foe, not a friend. The Silent Majority understands that the left here, like the terrorists abroad, leave no options but defeat or victory. Led only by common hopes and shared principles, trusting few in Washington but trusting the heart of America implicitly, now talking and writing and organizing by the tens of millions in hundreds of thousands of small groups, what was once call the Silent Majority is now, most definitely, the Not-So-Silent-Majority.

Bruce Walker is the author of two books: Sinisterism : Secular Religion of the Lie and The Swastika against the Cross: The Nazi War on Christianity.